The production of this album is as nearly perfect as it is possible to be. The individual vocals are superbly matched to each track. Perfection. Then and now.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
I have liked Mike Oldfield's music since I first heard 'Tubular Bells' back in 1973 and have bought at least 10 of his albums/CDs over the years. This CD was, however, bought for me quite a few years ago now but for various reasons I have only just got round to unwrapping it and sliding it into the CD player so these are very much my first impressions... In my opinion Mike Oldfield has always been at his best with a magnum opus, a 'larger than life' musical piece that develops over the length of the album/CD. Masterpieces like; 'Hergest Ridge', Ommadawn, 'Tubular Bells' and to a lesser extent Incantations. I have also enjoyed his other albums featuring shorter pieces such as; Crises, 'Five Miles Out' and Collaborations. It is with the above in mind I have to say I found this CD to be nothing spectacular. I listened through from start to finish and not one single track got my heart pounding, my toes tapping or my head swaying... It really does lack that Mike Oldfield touch. It has a horrible 'half hearted' feel to it, just a bunch of passable pop songs and not even an instrumental number to showcase Oldfield's true talent. It is as if he didn't really want to make this CD but was contractually obliged to do so and just threw a few things together to keep the execs off his back. 'Innocent' and 'Far Country' are probably the best tracks on the CD and 'Runaway Son' is almost certainly the worst. As I said this is very much my first impression of this CD and I think I might revisit this review some time and let you know if familiarity has changed my mind at all. Maybe the tracks will grow on me but to be honest I doubt it. The cover art is attractive as is the rest of the booklet and as I love lyrics it really is nice to find them all printed out for all to see. As an aside, I was amused to learn that an Atari 1040ST was used in the production of this CD as I had the exact same machine at that time only I used Steinberg's CuBase rather than C-Labs' Notator... It's frightening to think how far things have advanced since then! Only the most die hard Oldfield fan should bother buying this CD and if you happen to fall into that category you can pick one up for three or four pounds including P&P on eBay where they are regularly failing to sell. Regards tbodRead full review
Good
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
Current slide {CURRENT_SLIDE} of {TOTAL_SLIDES}- Best Selling in CDs
Current slide {CURRENT_SLIDE} of {TOTAL_SLIDES}- Save on CDs